Pedantic markers?

[Andiio]

Just wondering,

say if you evaluated a volume q in SA and e.g. it was 2pi - (pi^2)/2

Would you have to write your solution as:
pi/2(4-pi) to attain full marks?

Is there any possibility of losing any marks IF the question did not explicitly state "leave in factorised form or w/e", and only instructed you to find the "exact" volume?


Thanks!

[paulsterio]

no - you will gain full marks unless it says put it in a particular form, but i would tidy it up because im pedantic

it's like my obsession with rationalising denominators, and single fractions, and factoring things out...etc

depends if you're like steve jobs or not (:

[Andiio]

Thanks paul!

Just another trivial q - if the Q asked for 3 sig figs, and you wrote the answer as: 14.9 x 10^3 instead of 1.49 x 10^4, no marks would be lost either, correct?

[tony3272]

I'm pretty sure that's fine, but the standard form is generally the latter.

On a side note i think the significant figures bit is pretty dodgy. So many people doing both chem and physics still get confused with sig figs, making it even worse for those in methods/spesh doing neither.

[Andiio]

I'm pretty sure that's fine, but the standard form is generally the latter.

On a side note i think the significant figures bit is pretty dodgy. So many people doing both chem and physics still get confused with sig figs, making it even worse for those in methods/spesh doing neither.

Agreed. It's VCE though, 'nough said!

[Greatness]

I'm pretty sure that's fine, but the standard form is generally the latter.

On a side note i think the significant figures bit is pretty dodgy. So many people doing both chem and physics still get confused with sig figs, making it even worse for those in methods/spesh doing neither.

Bloody hell, sometimes i get decimal places and significant figures confused -.- Ive lost quite a few marks on sacs because of this.... :/

[paulsterio]

Just another trivial q - if the Q asked for 3 sig figs, and you wrote the answer as: 14.9 x 10^3 instead of 1.49 x 10^4, no marks would be lost either, correct?

Nah, no marks would be lost, but it's usually best to stick to a system, when using scientific notation there are two systems that are usually used

1) Number [1, 10) with the power being integers, so 12345 will be
2) Number [1,1000) with the power being multiples of 3 (comes from the metic system) so 12345 will be - this is often called Engineering Notation

Rarely do you get Significant Figures on Maths Exams anyway, but if they do, any form is technically correct